Making moving interstate easier

Terence Clarke recently took the plunge and moved interstate from Melbourne to Sydney with his partner. Moving interstate is different to moving suburbs and presents a new set of challenges to overcome. But with some careful planning and top tips from Terence, it doesn’t need to be as stressful as you fear.

Where did you move and why?
<p dir="ltr">We moved from leafy St Kilda East in Melbourne to Surry Hills, Sydney. We had been talking about moving for a few years as we were both becoming too complacent with life and felt like we hadn’t done anything exciting for a while. Also, at the ages of 36 and 40 we thought we’d take one last stab at doing something just because we wanted to.</p>
What were the major steps in your moving process?
<p dir="ltr">The actual decision to move instead of just talking about it was the biggest. The day we handed in our notice at work and where we were renting was big too. One thing we really didn’t want to do was double up on rent so we gave ourselves about two weeks of looking at properties online before we came up here to inspect a few properties. Once we found a property here and were approved, it all seemed very real.</p>
What were some of the unexpected steps you had to take?
<p dir="ltr">I was surprised how much more organisation it takes to move interstate as opposed to suburb to suburb. I had so many lists of things that needed to be done which just kept growing.</p>
What was your lowest moment? And your most exciting?
<p dir="ltr">The lowest moment was when the house was an absolute mess the day before we moved! I remember looking around knowing that in less than 24 hours we had to have the house clean and everything completely done as we needed to be on the road the same time as the removalist so we would be able to let them in at the other end. One of the best moments was when we just got out of Melbourne knowing that all of the hard stuff had been done and now we could just relax and enjoy the experience. Another exciting moment was hitting Sydney and having no idea where anything was!</p>
What advice can you give to people preparing to move?
<p dir="ltr">Prepare as much as possible beforehand and don’t leave things to the last minute. Start packing as soon as possible and de-cluttering your existing property to get rid of any rubbish. Finally, see if anything you don’t want anymore can be sold at a garage sale or online. We put together a pile of items and the proceeds from a garage sale and online sales paid for the removalist (which, when moving interstate, was a huge help).</p>
What would you do differently for your next move?

I would start organising the existing property sooner. There were a few minor maintenance issues we had to fix, so doing that as well as packing and cleaning was sometimes a little more than we felt like dealing with.

About to move yourself?

Start your property search online here and use Concierge to help make your move smoother. They can do some of the leg work for you like organising utility connections and disconnections at no charge to you.